- April 10, 2017, 2:00 pm US/Central
- Yoram Lithwick, Northwestern University
Astronomers have been discovering extrasolar planets at an astonishing
pace. The Kepler space telescope has
discovered thousands of planets smaller than Neptune. Many of these
planets’ properties were completely unexpected, based on how planets
were thought to form. I will describe these surprising properties, and
explain how we have inferred the densities and eccentricities of
dozens of exoplanets from their transit time variations.” These and
other discoveries point to new elements that are needed in the
paradigm of planet formation.